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Saturday, January 14, 2017

Converting the Arch-Maniac of Calverna! Bigger is Better!

I wanted to show off a piece that I converted some time ago to represent a character from Bell of Lost Souls campaign set - The Macharian Crusade. This campaign is very old, and some information is tough to get a hold of after 9 years - though the current link I have there is good as of today.

There is a lot of flavor to the crusade document, and while it has some rough edges at times, it is worth a download.

The great leader of Calverna was a warboss known as the Arch-Maniac. He was an Ork of gigantic size, dwarfing other chieftains of his race.

Curiously, the Arch-Manic's path to glory began after his near death in an explosion during the initial discovery of Callistos' unstable ore. He hid his face behind an iron mask, and always entered battle with his personal snotling attendant Kiff across his back.

The Arch-Maniac was unusually gifted for an Ork, and devised many cunning stratagems. Upon his death, apothecaries were at a loss to understand this prowess. His brain cavity was almost completely filled with scar tissue, a result of his earlier injury. Kiff was never found.

The Arch-Maniac of Calverna rose to power after conquering the forge world of Magnos Majoris, the iron heart of the Calverna system. The wily old Deathskulls Warlord then cemented his power for good by having himself wired into the almighty central processing engine of the forge world, turning himself into the biggest Cybork ever seen. Though this rather drastic step has left the Arch-Maniac all but invincible, the vast data-streams pouring into his tiny brain have also driven him quite mad. So it is that, while the Orks of the Calvernan empire are numerous and well equipped with tanks and guns, their attacks are random and display little in the way of logic or cogent strategy.

Putting it together:

The great leader of Calverna was a warboss known as the Arch-maniac. He was gigantic even by Ork standards. The Arch-Maniac rose to power after conquering the forge world of Magnos Majoris, the iron heart of the Calverna system.

I need some help putting the story together here. Visually, he is not much of a Cybork - though he is gigantic. I think I might stick with the first set of background information mostly.... Any ideas on how to flesh out his back story?

Modelling the figure:

I started with the Games Workshop model for the Lord of the Rings Hill Troll Chieftain Buhrdur - linked here.

Other than changing out the head, my biggest concerns at first were the feet and hands, which were not Ork-like at all.

The Head:
I used a burna-boy head with some green stuff to flesh out his neck. This was not difficult.

The Body:
I added armor bits and shoulder bits to his leg and shoulders. I attached Kiff (the ammo runt) backpack to his back.

I used burna-boy chest straps on his body to add extra flavor. As I recall, they worked nicely.

The Feet:
Here I needed to do some modeling with green stuff. This was my first time working with it, and that will be very evident with the hands. I attached shoulder armor bits from the Ork boyz kit to flesh out the boots.

The Weapons:
I was able to easily work a shoota and a big choppa onto this model. I used some extra left-over Ork bits for the shoota to add extra flavor.

Painting:
In this model's case, it is not anything to write home about. I used a standard three layer technique. I typically use four to five nowadays. I have also expanding my basing technique now, especially with the new Games Workshop technicals.

A look at the back of him.

As you can see, my modeling of the hands leaves a lot to be desired. It would be better if I had another go at the model.

So what do you think? The rules for this figure can be found within the BOLs document, and I have updated rules that I have made to fit the current edition that I will show below. The original rules are copyright Bell of Lost Souls. No stepping on toes is intended.

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